Babies Priority for Mothers, Ready to Put Aside Jobs to Look After Them

Women prefer having babies and pursue a job later, a latest research reveals.

Researchers at Centre for Economic Performance, London, found that fewer women born between 1985 and 1994 are in the work force compared to women born 10 years before them. The trend of more women in the workforce has come to a halt after several years in which female employment rose.

The number of working women rose drastically between 1970 and 1990. "The main message is that the youngest generations of women are not working any more than slightly older women, so female labour market progress has stalled," lead researcher Alan Manning, told The Sunday Times.

The researchers said that although the 2008-2009 economic slump can be blamed for such an occurrence, the trend showed deep-rooted social, cultural and economic changes. Manning said that the so-called employment equality that people generally believe in is not apparent, either in terms of number of women employed or in their pay scale.

According to the Times, economist Raquel Fernandez of New York University said that the decline in female employment rate might be linked to a dip in divorce cases. She explained that women no longer feel the need to prove themselves and prefer having children and looking after them. "Some people have argued that there has been a cultural backlash, with people who are younger associating less with feminism. They don't believe they have to go out to work to prove themselves; if they want to spend the first five years at home with their kids, they are fine with that," she said.

A mother of two, Asha Thakrar-Mentzer, told The Times that she opted to have children and concentrate on her  career later. "We have friends who are older who are paying a lot for childcare and struggling with the decision to work, so we decided we'd have children early and I'd look to get back into the workplace when they go to school," the 26-year-old mother said.